This initial feature film by independent Rick Carrier is about the disintergration of a Puerto Rican family whilst attempting to adjust themselves to hostile tenement life. Recently arrived in the United States, the family, Jose Alvarez, his wife Antonia, their teenage children Elena and Filipe, occupy a one-room flat on the upper East Side of New York City.

Jose loses another job. Filipe is fired when young hoodlums steal a grocery order from him. Young Elena is attacked and violated.

This film is an angry outcry. The director explains that he made Strangers in the City "because no film has yet done justice to the recent immigration problem, nor described the city as the dominating factor in people's lives".

Carrier's players are primarily screen newcomers and the director shows a forceful hand. It is an impressive film with a feeling of authenticity, and like previous Festival features - On the Bowery, The Savage Eye and Shadows - Strangers in the City underscores the growing, off-beat, personal production springing up in America.